


Till Death Shows Our Hearts

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Always Female Bilbo Baggins, F/M, Female Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Some wounds are so great, that the scars of them resonate throughout time and the very tapestry of Arda.The death of a soulmate is one of those things.





	Till Death Shows Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Hobbit.

For a moment after Thorin was born, they thought he didn't have a scar.

It wouldn't have mattered overmuch if he didn't; plenty of dwarves didn't, preferring to dedicate themselves to their craft. Another child could have been conceived to carry on Durin's line.

It wasn't until Thrain picked him up that he saw the thick silver band that looked burned into the skin of one of Thorin's fingers.

Thorin was scarred.

Which meant that somewhere out there, there was someone for him after all.

Hobbits didn't often have scars. The general assumption was that this had more to do with the ways hobbits tended to die than anything else. Old age could hardly present itself as a scar, and while heart failure might, no one wanted to even consider carving up a body to find out.

Poor Tansy Proudfoot was born with a wheel track plunging across her neck, though, a quirk explained when her even more unfortunate husband was run over by a runaway cart at market and killed instantly.

Otto Maggot had an entirely different sort of misfortune when he died of a lung disease that could not have possibly produced the silver mark that covered half of his wife's forehead.

On the bright side, at least Otto never had to learn that he wasn't her match after all.

Bella Baggins thought the whole business dreadfully morbid and rather pointless to boot. Who wanted to go their whole lives bearing the marks of how the person they loved most would die?

Of course, her perspective was probably skewed given that her birth had singlehandedly doubled the amount of bounders in the Shire. The midwife had taken one look at the mess of stab wounds marring her small torso and known there was no non-violent explanation for it. Her birth foretold more violence in the Shire than anyone wanted to deal with.

"Maybe you'll marry an adventurous sort," her mother said optimistically.

Bella looked down at the scattered silver wounds that covered her chest in her bedroom mirror for a long moment before forcefully closing her nightgown and deciding she hated adventures.

  
Thorin's scar caused considerable bewilderment to all who knew of it. The general assumption that it meant his beloved's finger would be cut off seemed simple enough, but the question of how that would lead to her death remained baffling. Dwarves were a sturdy lot; more often than not they survived losing limbs, and she would die over a finger?

"Maybe it'll get infected," Dis suggested, examining the ragged line through her neck in the nursery mirror.

Thorin scowled doubtfully.

"Or maybe the weapon will be poisoned!" Dis's enthusiasm was a little concerning, but Thorin nodded thoughtfully. Poison made sense.

Poison was ultimately the conclusion he came down to every time he mulled it over, right up until the mountain burned.

After that he had more urgent things to worry about.

Bella Baggins was pretty, proper, and rich.

None of that was enough to tempt anyone to court her, not with seven horrific wounds prophesying her true love's death. No one wanted to marry the wrong person, and no one wanted to think that such a painful death would be their’s.

Bella had rather given up on the whole thing by the time Gandalf showed up at her door.

When he proposed an adventure, her first incredulous thought was _Gandalf?_ before reason reasserted itself. Of course it couldn't be Gandalf, but if she agreed to this ridiculous adventure, it might well be some adventurous hobbit from Bree that would get dragged into things.

Refusing to go wouldn't save him, but neither would agreeing, and at least it would spare her heart.

It was the singing that changed her mind in the end. The longing in their voices tugged at the longing in her own heart, and she couldn't resist.

Whoever he was, at least he wouldn't die alone.

Thorin spared very little thought for his scar throughout the quest until Bella caught him rubbing it absently as they rested in Beorn's house. It had become a bad habit of his in his quiet moments.

"Old wound?" Bella asked sympathetically as she plopped down beside him to take advantage of the fire.

"A future one," he corrected and would have left it that, but she had saved his life and earned this small bit of trust. He tilted his hand so that the silver scar shone in the light of the fire. 

"Someone else will die of this wound one day." His voice turned dry. "Though why they can't survive such a paltry thing remains to be seen."

"But it's not a paltry thing at all!" Bella protested. "Think of the blood loss and the shock - And what if it gets infected?"

"Dwarves rarely suffer infection," he informed her. "Though poison remains a possibility." He pushed the matter aside. "What of your people? Do they bear the marks?" Elves did; Men did not. He  
was curious where hobbits would fall.

"Oh, yes," Bella said. "Mine aren't, well - generally visible - " She blushed and hurried on. "But they caused quite the stir. Seven wounds, all to the chest."

Unusual for her sheltered people, but not unheard of amongst his. Still, "Seven is an impressive number," he told her. "You should be proud of his endurance."

Bella tilted her head. "I hadn't thought of it quite like that before."

Further discussion was interrupted by a horrible shattering sound, and Thorin stalked off to see what his Company had broken now.

Bella's words about his scar stuck with him as they traveled from Beorn's house and haunted him in Thranduil's dungeon.

Bella had taken the wound very seriously. And hobbits were more fragile than dwarves.

When she emerged coughing from the river and remained sick for a week, the thoughts grew stronger than ever.

Hobbits got infections.

A hobbit might die from that wound.

Gold, fire, and blood drove off all thoughts of silver for awhile until the battle was over, and Fili and Kili carried their uncle to a healer's tent with bone white faces that held very little hope.

"If he doesn't make it - " Kili said, sounding frightened and painfully young.

"He'll make it," Bella said firmly from her place beside them just outside the tent. "I know he will."

Fili had counted the stab wounds, and she knew for a fact there were only five.

(She fiddles with the ring in her pocket while she waits. She doesn't yet realize that the finger it returns to most often is the one that on Thorin's hand bears a scar. When she realizes this, she thinks someday someone will steal it with the help of a knife. She realizes too late that instead it has just worn her thin until its removal cannot long be born by her suddenly frail form.)

(She will be newly dead when Thorin charges out to defend Erebor once more. He'll fight till seven blows find their mark.)

(But that is years and years away, and for now all that matters is that after days and days, Thorin has finally deigned to wake up.)


End file.
